Josie is on the Big Fish Wall!!!

Josie caught her first lake trout tonight! She fought the big fish for nearly 20 minutes. Although she wanted to give up a couple of times, we kept encouraging her and told her to be tough and she stuck with it till the end. It was a very thick 32 incher. Once she got sight of it,  Josie kept screaming "It's a grown up! It's a grown up!" Then she realized she could actually put her name on the Big Fish Wall like she has watched 100's of guest do for 6 years. The shouts then turned into, "I made the chart, I made the chart, I MADE THE CHAAAAARRRTTT!!!" Yep she was a little excited. It was a beautiful fish and it swam away without any issues. That's my girl! Way to go Josie Mae.

Josie's first ever lake trout  -  32 inches

Name this type of spider...

We found this spider in our boat this evening. I have never seen one like it before.
Anybody out there have any idea what this is?? Email me with your best guess.

How old was this tree?

Can you count the rings on this huge pine tree that fell during a storm earlier this summer?

more fun at the cushion...

The family and I took advantage of the nice weather and slow week to do some more fishing out at the "seat cushion". Josie had one on but lost it, Jillian caught a whitefish, and I caught a whitefish and 2 lake trout. My lakers were both 36 inches. The first one game me the toughest fight I have had in years. I battled that guy for nearly 30 minutes. With 8 lb test on a light action rod, I just could not lift him. I even had to chase him down with the boat so he would not spool me. It was awesome!
Thanks to Jim Still for giving me a package of Glow twister tails.

What happens at camp during a slow week?

When we have a small number of guests during the middle of the year, one of four things tend to happen...1) Get more projects done, 2)Play with the kids, 3)Go fishing or 4) Sleep.

As you can see from some of the following pictured we did just that.

The kids enjoying the cool water on a hot day. 

Josie loves to hang down on the dock with me while I am working.
Here she is sitting on her favorite rock writing in her journal.

Jeremiah helping Dad jig.

Josie caught her first whitefish the other night. She hooked it
 and reeled it in all by herself.
 

Jack hooked into his first ever lake trout. I do not think he was totally ready
for the kind of fight these fish can put up. Using his light action walleye rod
with 6 lb test, it took him over an hour to finally land the fish. It was a very
heavy 34 inch trout. Way to stick it out Jack!

Jillian also got into the fishing action. After boating a very nice whitefish,
she hooked into a laker of her own. Although it did not take an hour to land, it
was quite the circus to get the fish into the boat. The second she hooked up, she got tangled
in both my line and Josie's line. Then during that chaos Jeremiah fell down in the boat.
Jillian handed the rod to Josie to help Jeremiah, I worked on untangling the lines, and Josie
held on to the pole for dear life...

...After restoring order in the boat, Jillian took over again and was able
to land a nice 31 inch lager. This one also had a tag on it. 

Jeremiah enjoying the sunset with Mom.

A nice mess of whitefish

This was my biggest whitefish ever, 24 inches and wide!

While Mom went away with her girlfriends to Kenora for the day, the
kids and I decided it was time for some new steps for our cabin.
With 11 other cabins, 2 generators, 30 boats and motors, 4 floating docks,
and 5 acres of grass, it is not often that we have time time to update or repair
our own stuff. 

Of course you never want to leave your eyes off a curious 6 year old for to long!

My little helpers.

One more job to check off the bucket list!

And if the weather cooperates, I hope to finish repairing the far dock where most of the personal boats tie up to. I pull a section or two out at a time and float them to the main dock where I can strip them down to floats and beams. Then I rebuild the supporting structure and replace all of the decking.

Then I float the repaired section back into place. Once I get all 5 sections done(nearly 100 feet of dock), I have some work to do on the steps and electrical boxes.  This is project that is long over due.

In case you are wondering...I have to pull every nail out of each board in order to get down to a workable shell. Each section of floating dock is approx. 20 ft long, meaning - there is 35-40 deck boards - Each board has 8 nails - that's 320 nails per section - for a grand total of 1600 nails to complete this project. 

Before starting on the repair job.

One more section to go.

Yorkville group party barging in our bay...

When the walleyes are biting you do not need to go far to find them. The gang from Yorkville know this and they spent much of their trip catching lots of nice walleyes right across from camp. The picture above shows five boats tied together so they can enjoy hanging out together. In the 10 minutes I sat watching the fun, I think every boat landed at least on fish. How fun is that?!!!!

Great pics from Mike Franklin

Some great pics from Doug Keifer

Some great pics from Pat Neville